“Especially Catholic Charities!”
“You mean,” Lorraine adds, “that you haven’t slept with that search-and-rescue guy?”
“No,” Ted says. The possibility hasn’t crossed his mind. Andy’s body against his. His salty lips.
“I’m surprised. He seems full of spunk.”
Ted can’t say anything that won’t sound filthy.
“If you let it,” she says, “this job will break your heart every second of every day. You have to have a way to pull yourself together.” She glances at her clipboard. “And, Ted,” she says, “be careful, OK?”
He promises that he will be careful, but careful about what, he isn’t sure.
Once, while walking through Gramercy Park, Lorraine told him that there were two types of aid workers. The first type, she said, were running toward something. “Like God or whatever.” She flicked her hand, shooing away a fly. “It doesn’t have to be God. They’re trying to better themselves.” She took out a cigarette and tapped it against the pack. The sides of her index and middle fingers had callused to accommodate the butt. “The missionary types last forever because they see it as their life’s calling.”
She gave him the number of her therapist.
“Don’t worry. I don’t get a discount for referrals.”
“Are you sure you don’t need this card?” he asked.
“I’ve got him on speed dial,” she replied.
“The other type of aid worker,” she continued, “goes into aid work because they’re running away from something.”
A line of cabs wiggled down the street like an eel. The city was a Möbius strip, a never-ending loop.
“What type are you?” she asked.
After a pause, Ted replied. “I guess I’m running away.” Should he have felt some sort of relief? Because he didn’t. “How about you?”
She gave him a cockeyed glance. “What do you think?”
Irina, Arni’s deputy, has been in charge of the warehouse since Arni was medevaced out. She’s kept distribution flowing, but Arni’s replacement hasn’t been able to secure a flight from Delhi, and she hasn’t had time to coordinate outlying delivery routes. Piotr consults maps stretched out across a pallet of water bottles, and Irina nods, as if understanding what she must do. Ted moves to look, but Piotr holds up a finger: Wait.
Ted sits on a sack of rice. The grains shift under him, and he sinks into it. Waiting is part of his job description. He waited until Lorraine felt he was ready, and then again for an appropriate opportunity. What sort of person waits for disaster to strike?
The last one hit in November. The sky was the color of metal shavings. He’d spent the morning familiarizing himself with reports. Eight hundred dead from flooding in Mozambique. Honduran and Nicaraguan victims from Hurricane Mitch: eleven thousand. İzmit earthquake in Turkey: fourteen thousand, with informal reports of up to forty thousand. These numbers came from annual reports, eyewitness accounts, estimates from the field, and when he got home, one more: a message from Dr. Mark, John’s boyfriend. John was dead. He died two days ago, and he was sorry that he’d only gotten around to calling him now. The memorial service would be — shit, there was the other line. Sorry. He’d call back. John was dead, and Ted had fallen to third day’s notice. He was beneath call-waiting. He hated that Dr. Mark got to be the tragic one, the noble one. Ted picked up the receiver and started to dial John’s number. He wanted to say, You’ll never believe what I just heard, but on the fourth digit, Ted stared at the telephone as if nothing good had ever come from it. He tried to throw it across the room, but the jack kept it from going too far, and the base jerked back and landed on its side like an injured animal. The handset cracked but didn’t break. Ted could feel himself breathing heavily, as if he were angry, but about what, he didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t anger. A sliver of plastic from the phone lay on the floor. What kept the world from crumbling every second of every day?
He picked the phone back up and clamped it in his hand, until it was almost one piece again. He dialed John’s number again and, this time, left his own message: “Is there something I can do?”
Piotr wants him to do reconnaissance. “With all the volunteers coming in,” he says, “we can’t put them at risk.” Ted will pave the way for others. But it also means he is expendable. He has trouble imagining Piotr herding volunteers.
“A soldier will accompany you,” Piotr says, “but your own safety is paramount. If anything looks strange, leave immediately. I will be on the delivery truck. You can contact me with this.” He hands Ted a CB radio the size of a briefcase. Dust has accumulated between the knobs.
Ted picks up the mic. “Smokey,” he says, “this is Bandit. Come in, over.” His throat makes the sound of static. Piotr stares. “I’ve actually never used one of these.”
“Here,” Piotr says, and he flicks a switch. Little green and red indicator lights that look like broken specks of candy blip on. Piotr shows him a button on the side of the mic. “Press this, speak, then let go. We will be on channel seventeen.”
Ted looks at the radio. He turns it on its side, then back again. All the indicators are Cyrillic. Russian hand-me-downs. This place is the world’s largest Goodwill.
“The channel knob is here,” Piotr says. “It has been set. Incoming volume is here, and that’s outgoing volume.”
“What’s the range on this?”
“Four miles maybe. The military wants satellite-phone traffic to a minimum, so this is our backup. Radio if you feel something is amiss,” Piotr says. “Use your discretion.”
Whatever he can do, Ted supposes. He picks up the mic and pushes the button. “Roger that.” But before he can say, Over and out, a squeal of feedback pierces the air. That noise is his voice, distorted, deafening.
This work requires a certain amount of duplicity. Knowing to whom to speak and the right tone of voice with which to speak. Piotr cajoles so softly that following his suggestions feels like a compliment. Lorraine, on the other hand, blusters: she’s a metal wedge; complications split in two when she presses into them.
As Ted tries to secure a driver from the motor pool, he wishes he had their skills. He holds Piotr’s map. A loop of cities to the northeast of Bhuj is highlighted in blue. “Food distribution,” Ted says to the soldier guarding the lot. “I need a car.”
The lot lies at the far end of the air force base. From here, the jets look like tents, their fumes flowing in on hot breezes. A gas tanker is parked at the end of the lot like a bulwark, and military vehicles — Jeeps, Land Rovers, light trucks — line up with their engines running. Vaporized petroleum settles into Ted’s throat, makes it difficult to speak.
A scrapyard has built up around the motor pool, though Ted can’t distinguish between functioning and nonfunctioning. The military has commandeered most working vehicles. Only soldiers drive. Some cars are obviously destroyed: skulls caved in, as if crushed beneath a building. Dark fluids leak onto the ground. Gas tank covers gape open, contents siphoned away. Army mechanics, their uniforms with a camouflage pattern of grease, salvage what they can. Little bits of machinery like still-vital organs. Cars that look perfectly drivable have their hoods propped open, revealing nothing but emptiness inside.
“I’m with USAID.” He pulls his ID card from his wallet. The soldier seems unimpressed. Lorraine, he imagines, would simply barge in and demand a car. Piotr would find the soldier’s superior and convince him to release one. This is a test.
Ted points into the lot. Then to himself. He follows the soldier’s eyes to make sure he’s been understood. Good. He traces the blue-inked path for the soldier, who gives a small nod and shrugs, disinterested. Still good, though. Ted’s wallet is still out, and he opens the fold to show the bills inside. Mostly ones, worn and faded, no more than thirty dollars, tops, but the soldier beckons Ted with his finger and leads him to an unlocked car, the keys in the ignition. He’s never heard of this brand: a Maruti 800, blue like the color one associates with amateur paintings of the ocean. Spots of rust dot the doors and the wheel wells. The inside smells of hot vinyl, hot enough to sear the skin off your thighs. He rolls down the passenger-side window while the soldier yells something, and other soldiers, napping in the shade between cars, rise and brush themselves off. They move cars out of the way, like parking valets. When the soldier returns and knocks on the door, he looks around, as if checking if anyone is watching. He slides his hand in the window, palm up. A low five. Ted tells himself, Don’t do anything stupid, but the rest of him has already handed over the money.